Seaside Heights mayor considering leaving roller coaster submerged by Sandy as 'tourist attraction'

AP

A man walks on the beach as a rollercoaster that once sat on the Funtown Pier in Seaside Heights, NJ rests in the ocean.

SEASIDE HEIGHTS, NJ — The remains of a roller coaster that was knocked off a New Jersey amusement pier by Superstorm Sandy and partially submerged in the Atlantic Ocean may be left there as a tourist attraction.

Seaside Heights Mayor Bill Akers tells WNBC-TV in New York that officials have not made a decision on whether to tear down the coaster. But the mayor says he's working with the Coast Guard to see if the coaster is stable enough to leave it alone, because he believes it would make "a great tourist attraction."

Meanwhile, efforts to rebuild the storm-ravaged town are continuing.

Demolition crews have removed the resort's damaged boardwalk. And Akers says construction on a new boardwalk should begin in January and be ready by Memorial Day.

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1 dead, 3 injured in Bahamas helicopter crash

NASSAU, Bahamas – Officials say a helicopter has crashed in an upscale Bahamas resort, killing one U.S. citizen and injuring at least three others.

Miami Herald news partner WFOR CBS 4 reported one of the survivors was Jeffrey Soffer, owner the Fontainebleau resort in Miami Beach.

North Abaco parliamentarian Renardo Curry says at least four Americans were on the helicopter when it crashed Thursday morning in Baker’s Bay Golf & Ocean Club on Great Guana Cay.

Police have not released the identities of the passengers or other details about the crash.

Curry says the helicopter was attempting to land at Baker’s Bay when a wind gust sent the aircraft spiraling.

Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham says one passenger died and three survivors are being treated at a clinic. He says their injuries are apparently not life threatening.

Baker’s Bay is a playground for millionaires located about 150 miles off Florida’s eastern coast.

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Conservative Christian group pushed reinstating Miami-Dade commission prayer

The Miami-Dade County Commission is poised next month to reinstate nondenominational prayers to kick off their meetings, after a group of commissioners approved the policy shift last week.

But the change was not spontaneous: The conservative Christian group pushing to restore prayer has been laying the groundwork for nearly a year and a half.

The Christian Family Coalition saw an opportunity to promote its agenda after Commissioner Katy Sorenson retired in late 2010, according Anthony Verdugo, the group’s executive director. Sorenson had been one of two board members who years earlier — in 2004, Verdugo said — changed the county’s practice to begin meetings with a moment of silence instead of a prayer.

Sorenson was replaced by the more conservative Lynda Bell, whom the Coalition had endorsed. There was other commission turnover as well.

Before then, “we didn’t feel we had enough votes on the commission to get it through,” Verdugo said. “We didn’t want it to be a divisive item for the community — we don’t need that.”

Because expressions of faith in public meetings may turn off or offend some in the community, the proposal before the commission envisions rotating religious leaders of different faiths to give invocations. The plan does not address people who do not belong to a particular religion or do not believe in God, though no one on the board or in the audience will be required to participate.

There is a price tag: It will cost the county clerk’s office about $22,000 to compile the names of religious congregations in a database, and another $4,000 a year for technical support and maintenance, according to an estimate provided to the commission by Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s office.

The story behind the proposal began last year, when the Coalition seized on its political opening.

It held a Saturday session to train some 40 people the group called “citizen lobbyists.” They were instructed on the county’s history with prayer and on laws regulating the practice.

The corps members then reached out to their commissioners. Among them was Sybel W. Lee, a 68-year-old self-described “concerned mother, grandmother and activist” who said she spoke to Commissioner Audrey Edmonson’s aide about the importance of prayer.

“Look at the harm the absence of an invocation has caused in this country,” Lee said. An invocation is about reflection, she noted, “not to impose your beliefs and ideology on other people.”

But the Coalition still needed a commissioner to take the lead on reinstating prayer. Though invocations had been eliminated without legislation — the commission just changed its meeting practices — there did not appear to be political will on the board to switch back without an ordinance.

Though the Coalition had an ally in Bell, the former mayor of Homestead, she was now representing a more moderate county commission district and was not the most likely candidate to shepherd the legislation.

Instead, the Coalition turned to Commissioner Jose “Pepe” Diaz.

“Honestly, it’s always been on my mind,” Diaz said. “Why can we not have prayer like everywhere else, like in Congress, in the state?”

Diaz said the county attorney’s office toiled to make the ordinance inclusive.

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Kimora Lee Simmons and Djimon Hounsou Split

Though never married, Djimon Hounsou and Kimora Lee Simmons are ending their relationship, according to People.com.

PICS: The 10 Most Shocking Breakups in Hollywood

Hounsou's rep tells the news source that the couple has "officially separated after 5 1/2 years."

The actor, 48, reportedly met Simmons, 42, in February 2007 after her split from hip hop mogul Russell Simmons.

They have one child together, three-year-old son Kenzo Lee Hounsou.

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Under-equipped authorities used canoes from stores & Boy Scout camp to rescue people on Staten Island during Sandy

Calling all boats!

Under-equipped cops and firefighters on Sandy-battered Staten Island were in such desperate need for boats to save people from flooding homes that they took recreational canoes from an outdoor sporting goods store, borrowed rowboats from a city park and commandeered more from a Boy Scout camp, the Post has learned.

The police and fire departments on the hard-hit borough were inundated with 911 calls for help the night of Oct. 29 and did not have enough city-issued resources to perform all the rescues required, multiple sources said.

Several quick-thinking cops rushed over to Dick’s Sporting Goods at the Staten Island Mall in New Springville shortly after it closed around 9:30 p.m. – as the supserstorm was bearing down in full force – and were greeted by a sympathetic night manager as they banged on the door, sources added.

“It was done right after the storm surge came in,” said one police source. “It was done out of sheer necessity. I don’t think anybody expected what they saw that night.”

The manager let the cops take three 14-foot canoes off a display wall, as well as paddles and lifejackets – a total haul worth close to $2,000, according to one store employee.

“We at DICK'S Sporting Goods were proud that we could assist in providing supplies to the NYPD so that they could reach those affected by Superstorm Sandy,” said Chief Marketing Officer Lauren Hobart.

The NYPD has previously said that the borough’s Emergency Service Unit ventured out into the whipping winds and strong currents with only a large zodiac boat with a 40 hp motor, an inflatable zodiac boat without a motor, and a Yamaha jet ski.

Two metal jon boats weren’t used because cops feared being electrocuted by downed power lines.

However, a source said that the bigger concern among Island cops was that rotted plugs in the bottoms of some older NYPD skiffs were leaking, forcing cops to bail out the boats as they saved residents.

“Guys were tossing out buckets of water while helping families step into the boat. Just imagine what that must’ve looked like,” said another source.

Meanwhile, Island firefighters were equipped with seven boats the night Sandy hit, as well as seven water rescue units each staffed with six firefighters, said a Fire Department spokesman.

Still, firefighters found themselves in need of extra boats and reached out to the borough’s Parks Department headquarters for assistance.

Staffers grabbed all the rowboats from the concession stand in Clove Lakes Park in Sunnyside, loaded them onto department pickups and delivered them to firefighters braving the dangerous rising waters in Cedar Grove Beach, according to Parks officials.

“People were in need and our Parks staff just jumped into action, not even thinking about their own safety,” said Parks manager Bonnie Williams. All the boats were returned the next day.

Firefighters also commandeered two boats from the Boy Scout’s Pouch Camp facility, said senior ranger Gil Schweiger.

Schweiger added that he and several staffers also drove around that deadly night towing a trailer loaded with four boats and met firefighters at several disaster scenes to aid in rescues.

“We went to Dongan Hills and saved 127 people and their pets. All people living on Naughton Avenue, Seaver Avenue and Slater Boulevard, right near the marshes,” said Schweiger.

The revelations about the city’s lack of boat preparedness for first-responders comes two days after The Post reported how callers to the city’s 911 system were met with busy signals, recorded messages and ill-prepared operators during the storm, which ravaged swaths of the city and led to 43 deaths.

The failures have led Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Councilman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Queens), chairwoman of the fire and criminal justice committee, to call for an investigation.

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Ticket sales up 16 percent for auto show

Miami Beach’s Miami International Auto Show reported a 16 percent increase in ticket sales for the Miami Beach event held in November.

The auto expo does not release full attendance figures, and won’t say exactly how many people came to the 10-day event, which ended Nov. 18. A show spokeswoman said the overall attendance was roughly 600,000 people, but a large number of attendees came using free tickets handed out as promotions.

Now in its 42nd year, the event is held at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

DOUGLAS HANKS

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Miami receives mixed bag of bond ratings

Don’t look to Wall Street to sort out Miami’s complicated finances.

On Tuesday, Moody’s Investors Service issued a negative outlook for some of the city’s outstanding bond obligations, and gave a below-average rating to a bond issue expected to close next month.

Fitch Ratings, meanwhile, upgraded the outlook for the outstanding bond issues from negative to stable. But it, too, gave a subpar grade to the new bonds.

The mixed bag of ratings came one week after Budget Director Danny Alfonso announced that Miami closed the fiscal year with an unexpected $37 million surplus. The city’s computer system put the figure at $45 million, but Alfonso said several transactions had yet to post.

Fitch called the year-end surplus “impressive,” and noted that Miami had managed to boost its overall reserves to $54 million, or about 11 percent of spending.

“I’m extremely pleased that we’ve improved” our rating, City Manager Johnny Martinez said Tuesday. “They’ve been watching the things that we’ve been doing as far as building our fund balance and living within our means.”

Governments sell bonds on Wall Street as a way to borrow money, with bond buyers collecting interest and principal payments from the issuers in the same way a bank makes money off home mortgages. The ratings reflect the likelihood that any issuer will continue making bond payments, with a lower rating suggesting a higher risk of default.

Fitch assigned the city’s latest bond issue a BBB+ rating — a below-average grade for a municipal security.

The $45 million bond issue, which was approved by the City Commission Monday and will likely be sold in early December, will pay off a short-term loan that financed Miami’s share of the PortMiami tunnel dig.

Fitch Analyst Michael Rinaldi said the committee had expressed concern over recent turnover in the city’s finance department.

Said Martinez: “I wish the rating had been a little bit higher.”

Moody’s also assigned a mediocre grade to the tunnel bonds — an A3 rating — and described the outlook as negative.

“The negative outlook reflects the city’s ongoing challenges to control high fixed costs, uncertainties associated with key managerial turnover and the ongoing [U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission] investigation,” Moody’s analysts wrote.

Earlier in the year, Moody’s put Miami under review for a potential credit downgrade after the SEC announced intentions to file civil fraud charges against the city. The review was expanded when several key finance officials resigned their posts.

At the end of the review, the ratings stayed consistent, Moody’s spokesman David Jacobson said.

On the whole, Commission Vice Chairman Marc Sarnoff said, the news was positive.

“The needle is moving in the right direction,” Sarnoff said. “The gas tank is starting to get full.”

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Tablets, discounters top U.S. holiday shopping lists: Reuters/Ipsos

(Reuters) – Move over computers, your sleek siblings are the prized gift of the holidays.

One-third of U.S. consumers are thinking about buying an electronic tablet this holiday season, according to a new Ipsos poll conducted for Thomson Reuters. And 22 percent of those who want one of the hot devices said they plan to cut back on other holiday purchases in order to afford them.

But the new, smaller tablet from industry leader Apple Inc – the iPad mini – is not taking the world by storm. Only 8 percent named the iPad mini as their first choice, the same percentage that said they would like to buy a Microsoft Corp Surface tablet.

“There has been a lot of controversy about the fact that the iPad mini is $ 329, that the price might not be right,” said Jharonne Martis, director of consumer research for Thomson Reuters.

Still, Apple’s full-size iPad remains the leader, with 25 percent picking it as the tablet of choice while 15 percent want to buy Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle Fire, and another 15 percent want a Samsung Galaxy device.

Apple sold about 11 million iPads during the 2011 holiday quarter, and this year analysts expect it to sell about 16 million iPads and 8 million iPad mini tablets, Martis said.

Retailers have prepared for a big tablet season. Walmart, for example, doubled its orders for iPads and other tablets and will offer an iPad 2 with a $ 75 gift card for $ 399 as one of its specials on Thanksgiving night.

Laptops are still on the wish lists for 32 percent of respondents, while 18 percent would like to buy desktop computers and only 13 percent are looking for ultrabooks.

SPENDING LESS OR STILL UNSURE

Meanwhile, retailers may want shoppers to believe the holiday shopping season begins sometime in September. But the poll shows that most consumers still are waiting until around Thanksgiving to start their holiday shopping.

Walmart, Toys R Us and others started promoting their layaway plans in September as a way to reserve hot items.

While 11 percent said they were using layaway more this year than last year, 71 percent said they were not.

Seventy-two percent have done no shopping yet or less than a quarter of it, the poll found.

“The fact that 72 percent haven’t really started yet reinforces why Black Friday is coined the official beginning of the holiday season because that’s truly when shoppers start to open their wallets,” Martis said.

Most of that shopping will still take place in stores, despite the rise of online shopping and fears of shoppers using physical stores as showrooms for products they will buy online using their mobile devices.

“It is still growing, but it is still a very small portion of retail sales,” Martis said of mobile shopping.

Going to a mix of different types of stores is the plan for 42 percent of the respondents planning to go to stores, while 31 percent plan to do most of their holiday shopping at a discount chain such as Walmart, Target or Kmart, which will all be open for at least some of Thanksgiving Day to court shoppers.

The U.S. economy and possible tax hikes continue to be a concern for some, with 28 percent saying that they are spending less this year because of the fiscal cliff, though 58 percent said the fiscal cliff was not affecting their holiday spending plans.

Two-thirds of shoppers said they were planning to spend the same amount as last year or were unsure about their spending plans, while 21 percent plan to spend less and 11 percent plan to spend more. Also, 60 percent said are choosing to shop closer to home to save on gas.

Contrary to the cry of some traditional retailers, “show rooming” is not the norm for most people.

When asked how, if at all, they use a mobile device while in stores, 63 percent said they do not even pull out their smartphones while shopping. Fifteen percent compare prices online and 14 percent said they research products.

Amazon is the top online retailer shoppers plan to visit more than they did last year, with 42 percent picking it, 38 percent choosing Walmart, 23 percent selecting Target and 14 percent picking EBay.

Physical stores remain the top destination, with 26 percent planning to shop primarily at stores and only 14 percent planning to shop primarily online.

The poll is the first in a series that Ipsos will conduct during the holiday season.

The findings are from an Ipsos poll conducted for Thomson Reuters from November 15-19, 2012, with 1,169 American adults interviewed online. Results are within the poll’s credibility intervals, a tool used to account for statistical variation in Internet-based polling. The credibility interval was plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

(Additional reporting by Brad Dorfman; Editing by Edward Tobin and Leslie Gevirtz)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Ariel Winter's Sister Continues Temporary Custody

The real-life drama for Modern Family's Ariel Winter continues as a judge granted temporary custody to continue with Winter's sister Shanelle Gray, ET has learned.

PICS: Legendary Kid Stars

This news follows a new declaration filed by Winter's brother, Jimmy Workman, pleading with the court system and the Department of Children and Family Services to help his family get back together.

"I have NEVER seen any physical or emotional abuse in the home of my parents regarding Ariel," Jimmy wrote in his declaration. "I have seen normal mother and daughter arguments and banter back and forth but nothing more. Counseling was set up for [Ariel's mom] Chrisoula and Ariel to get to the root of their issues and corrected."

VIDEO: Ariel Winter's Mom Speaks

In October, temporary guardianship of Ariel was granted to Shanelle after court documents were filed, claiming that Ariel "has been the victim of ongoing physical abuse (slapping, hitting, pushing) and emotional abuse (vile name calling, personal insults about minor and minor's height, attempts to 'sexualize' minor, deprivation of food, etc.) for an extended period of time by the minor's mother [Chrisoula 'Crystal' Workman]..."

Crystal denies the allegations, telling ET, "I love my daughter very much. I would never abuse her in anyway and I have always tried my best to always protect her and do what is right for her. My daughter is in a business that requires you to grow up fast. It's hard enough being a teenage girl, but it's even harder when you are in the public eye. However, because you are in the public eye, it doesn't mean you are no longer in need of good parenting."

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Secretary accused of hoarding millions' worth of art

Imelda Marcos hoarded shoes. And her former personal secretary in New York hoarded tens of millions of dollars in ill-gotten Monets, according to a new indictment.

Vilma Bautista, 74, hid and then sold four valuable Impressionist paintings that had disappeared from the Philippine Consulate townhouse in Manhattan after the Marcos regime toppled in 1986, prosecutors said today.

Bautista hobbled into a Manhattan courtroom gripping a cane with both hands, and pleaded not guilty to tax fraud, conspiracy and offering a false instrument for filing.

In conspiracy with two nephews from Bankok, Thailand, she sold Claude Monet's 1899 "Water-Lily" painting in Sept. 2010 for $32 million after hiding it for two decades, according to DA Cyrus Vance, Jr.

She similarly hid and eventually sold a second Monet, plus paintings by Alfred Sisley and Albert Marquet, despite knowing that the Philippine government sought all four works, the DA said. Bautista never disclosed the sale income in her tax returns, depriving the state of millions of dollars in tax revenue, Vance said.

Officials said the investigation into the Marcos art sale conspiracy is continuing.

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